Neon Gourami

[lingotheowl]

So I just found my neon gourami dead. I've had him for a while, in a 29 gallon with 4 small angel fish, 6 blood fin tetra, beta pallifina, female betta, 3 Khuli loaches and 2 snails. Not sure why, he showed no signs of being sick. He was eating in front of my probably 2 hours earlier as well. He was having some issues with the betta pallifina, but it wasn't bad enough that I thought they should be seperated. Just confused as to what might have caused his death :/

 

[Gizmo]

The betta or the angels might have killed him. He also could have had dropsy from the pet store. Does he show any signs of "pineconing", where there's a raised lump under the skin that pushes the scales out like a pinecone? It's a sign of internal hemorrhaging and is very hard to recover from.

 

[Betty]

How long has the tank been setup? Is it cycled? Can you check the water for ammonia and nitrates? Have there been any new additions to the tank?

Without any visible signs of disease or aggression, it's not easy to figure out what causes deaths.

 

[lingotheowl]

Up until today I had never heard of pineconing, but he did indeed show signs of that after looking it up and reading about it. I'm very sad I didn't catch it beforehand...

 

[lingotheowl]

Also, I had a sample of my water tested from before I did a water change and then the next day after I did one as well and both samples tested fine. Negative for nitrates and nitrites, 7.0 ph, etc.